Joan Blondell Filmography

Hollywood Bloopers

Synopsis: It's nice to know that some of the greatest of the movie stars, while doing some of the most famous and best of Hollywood movies, have feet of clay like the rest of us. This set of outtakes lets us see the human side of celebrities like Bette Davis, Errol Flynn, Kirk Douglas, Humphrey Bogart and James Cagney Read More

The Rebels

Synopsis: The Rebels was the second "Operation Prime Time" miniseries to be based on author John Jakes' Kent Family Chronicles (the first was The Bastard). The saga of Philip Kent (Andrew Stevens), illegitimate son of a British blueblood, picks up with Kent fighting in the Continental Army during the Read More

The Champ

Actors: Jon Voight, Faye Dunaway, Rick Schroder, Jack Warden, Arthur Hill, Strother Martin

Synopsis: Billy (Jon Voight) is on the road with his son T.J. (Ricky Schroder), fighting low-end boxing matches for drinking money before moving on to the next town for another match. When his ex-wife (and T.J.'s mother) Annie (Faye Dunaway) shows up, it's to tell him that she wants custody of the boy. She Read More

Grease

Actors: John Travolta, Olivia Newton-John, Stockard Channing, Jeff Conaway, Didi Conn, Eve Arden

Synopsis: "Grease," said the poster and the Barry Gibb song, "is the word." Transferring its setting from Chicago to sunny California, and adding a dash of disco to the ersatz '50s score, producer Allan Carr and director Randal Kleiser turned this long-running Jim Jacobs - Warren Casey Broadway smash into Read More

The Glove

Actors: John Saxon, Roosevelt Grier, Joanna Cassidy, Joan Blondell, Jack Carter

Synopsis: In this actioner, bounty hunter Sam Kellough, who is also an ex-cop, and an ex-ballplayer, is out to earn the $20,000 reward for the capture of Victor Hale, a psychotic killer wanted for beating a prison guard to death with a "riot glove." The villain is not as horrible as he seems. When the Read More

Battered

Actors: Karen Grassle, LeVar Burton, Mike Farrell, Chip Fields, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: Battered concentrates upon three female victims of spousal abuse. Chip Fields is the new wife of struggling young Levar Burton. Joan Blondell is the alcoholic middle-aged spouse of the equally bibilous Howard Duff. And Karen Grassle (who cowrote the screenplay) is married to Ivy leaguer Mike Farrell Read More

Opening Night

Actors: Gena Rowlands, Ben Gazzara, John Cassavetes, Joan Blondell, Paul Stewart

Synopsis: John Cassavetes' Opening Night stars Gena Rowlands (Mrs. Cassavetes) as end-of-tether Broadway actress Myrtle Gordon. She is about to open in a play written by her old friend Sarah Goode (Joan Blondell), but a series of pre-show setbacks and disasters threaten to destroy not only the production Read More

The Baron

Synopsis: A big daddy in the underworld is betrayed and vows to settle up. There's lots of action in this big-city streets tale. ~ All Movie Guide Read More

Won Ton Ton, the Dog Who Saved Hollywood

Actors: Bruce Dern, Madeline Kahn, Art Carney, Phil Silvers, Ron Leibman

Synopsis: This spoof makes fun of a certain famous German shepherd movie star from the 1920s. The mayhem begins when the head honcho of a financially struggling studio turns a lost dog into a legend. The story features a number of old stars making cameo appearances. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Death at Love House

Actors: Kate Jackson

Synopsis: In this made-for-TV film, a screenwriter (Robert Wagner) begins writing the biography of the dead movie queen who had a brief affair with his father. After work on the project has commenced, he becomes obsessed with her spirit and gets a response from the other side of the grave. ~ John Bush, All Read More

Winner Take All

Synopsis: In this drama, a gambling-addicted housewife resorts to stealing from the family savings account to feed her obsession. Trouble ensues when her husband finds out. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Dead Don't Die

Actors: Reggie Nalder, Ray Milland

Synopsis: This interesting made-for-TV period gangster-horror piece -- written by Psycho author Robert Bloch -- stars George Hamilton as a military man in 1930s Chicago who pounds the pavement in search of answers after his brother's wrongful execution. His investigations plunge him into a dark world even Read More

Three Comedies

Synopsis: This comedy is comprised of three vignettes involving a school psychiatrist, a pair of police sergeants, and a beleaguered father. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Support Your Local Gunfighter

Actors: James Garner, Suzanne Pleshette, Jack Elam, Joan Blondell, Harry Morgan

Synopsis: This Western action/comedy is told in the same tongue-in-cheek manner as its predecessor, Support Your Local Sheriff. Goldie (Marie Windsor), a madam, is a formidable woman, and Latigo Smith (James Garner) knows perfectly well that his disreputable ways will be trimmed considerably should she Read More

The Phynx

Actors: Michael Miller, Ray Chippeway, Dennis Larden, Lonny Stevens, Lou Antonio

Synopsis: Have you ever longed for the day when James Brown, Martha Raye, and Col. Harland Sanders would appear in a movie together? Well, that's barely the tip of the improbable casting iceberg in this bizarre cold-war spoof. The leaders of the American intelligence organization the S.S.A. ("Super Secret Read More

Big Daddy

Synopsis: Voodoo, hungry 'gators, and love abound in this Z-grade exploitationer set within the steamy Florida Everglades. There a man tries to save his gal from a rival. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

Anatomy of a Crime

Synopsis: Anatomy of a Crime is comprised of two episodes from the 1968-69 TV series The Outsider. Darren McGavin earns top billing as David Ross, an ex-cop who became a private eye after cooling his heels in prison on a trumped-up murder charge. Ever on the outside looking in, Ross only accepts case from Read More

Petticoat Junction: Girl of Our Dreams

Synopsis: Joan Blondell guest stars as Florabelle Campbell, who many years ago had been at the center of a romantic rivalry between Uncle Joe (Edgar Buchanan) and Sam Drucker (Frank Cady). Now that Florabelle has returned to Hooterville, Joe and Sam vie for a second chance to win her heart. But thanks to Read More

Here Come the Brides [TV Series]

Synopsis: Robert Brown, David Soul, and Bobby Sherman were the stars of Here Come The Brides, which ran on ABC from September of 1968 until April of 1970, portraying Jason, Joshua, and Jeremy Bolt, respectively. The three brothers, living in Seattle in the year 1865, own nearby Bridal Veil Mountain. Left to Read More

Kona Coast

Actors: Richard Boone, Vera Miles, Joan Blondell, Steve Ihnat, Chips Rafferty

Synopsis: Sam Moran (Richard Boone) is a Honolulu charter-boat captain who leads fishing expeditions in the tropical paradise. When his daughter is found murdered at the party of a wealthy young playboy, he seeks the truth about the murder. Convinced the playboy is guilty, he enlists the help of his friend Read More

Stay Away, Joe

Actors: Elvis Presley, Burgess Meredith, Joan Blondell, Katy Jurado, Thomas Gomez

Synopsis: This forgettable comedy finds Joe Lightcloud (Elvis Presley) as a mixed-blood Indian with strong ties to his tribe and his father Charlie (Burgess Meredith). Joe tries to get government assistance for the tribe in exchange for permitting the local congressman to graze cattle on Indian land. Maime (Quentin Dean Read More

Waterhole #3

Actors: James Coburn, Carroll O'Connor, Maggie Blye, Claude Akins, Timothy Carey

Synopsis: "A rootin', tootin', but sincere picture" was the advertising tag for the comedy western Waterhole No. 3. James Coburn plays the likeably amoral hero, who'll go to any lengths to get his mitts on a treasure map. Like his principal rival, renegade confederate cavalryman Claude Akins, Coburn knows Read More

Winchester '73

Actors: Tom Tryon, John Saxon, Dan Duryea, John Drew Barrymore, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: John Drew Barrymore, Joan Blondell, John Dehner, and Dan Duryea star in this made-for-television remake of the 1950 James Stewart Western about a two brothers who both covet the titular repeating rifle. As the dedicated officer and the crafty ex-con face off to determine who will walk away with Read More

Family Affair: Somebody Upstairs

Synopsis: Joan Blondell guests as Laura London, a Mermanesque Broadway musical star who moves into the apartment one floor above Bill's. Both Buffy (Anissa Jones) and Cissy (Kathy Garver) are fascinated by Laura's flamboyant celebrity lifestyle, and before long the girls are dreaming of their own showbiz Read More

Ride Beyond Vengeance

Actors: Chuck Connors, Michael Rennie, Kathryn Hays, Joan Blondell, Gloria Grahame

Synopsis: Told via flashback by a saloon keeper to a census taker in a tiny Texas town, this brutal, adult-oriented western offers the tale of a drifter who settles down to marry a woman he doesn't love so he can get at her inheritance. When that is exposed, the drifter flees and does not return for eleven Read More

The Spy in the Green Hat

Synopsis: In this episode from The Man from U.N.C.L.E. series, the two good guy spies must stop a criminal mastermind from altering the course of the Gulf Stream. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide Read More

The Lucy Show: Lucy and Joan

Actors: Joan Blondell, Keith Andes, Queenie Smith, Bill Dungan

Synopsis: With the help of her new neighbor Joan, Lucy tries to line up her handsome acquaintance Brad Collins (Keith Andes) as her date for a fancy dress ball. But there's a slight snag: it seems that there is a Mrs. Collins....Cast as Joan Brenner, veteran actress Joan Blondell makes her first Lucy Show Read More

The Lucy Show: Lucy, the Stunt Man

Actors: Joan Blondell, Don Megowan, Eddie Quillan, Lou Krugman, Burt Douglas

Synopsis: As a ploy to get extra money for a leopard-skin jacket, Lucy (Lucille Ball) tells Mooney (Gale Gordon) that her refrigerator is on the blink -- then is forced to destroy the fridge to back up her story. Meanwhile, Lucy's neighbor Joan (Joan Blondell) is dating a Hollywood stuntman who comes up Read More

The Cincinnati Kid

Actors: Steve McQueen, Edward G. Robinson, Ann-Margret, Karl Malden, Tuesday Weld

Synopsis: Steve McQueen stars as the Cincinnati Kid, a crackerjack New Orleans stud poker player. Tired of chicken feed, the Kid decides to challenge The Man (Edward G. Robinson), the reigning poker champ, who is in town for a private game. The Shooter (Karl Malden), another gambling pro, arranges a game Read More

The Blue-Eyed Horse

Synopsis: The Blue-Eyed Horse is an hour-long farce starring Joan Blondell as an inveterate horse player and Ernest Borgnine as her beleaguered husband. The film opens with Borgnine standing before judge Paul Lynde, trying to explain why his wife has disappeared. The police suspect foul play, offering as Read More

Advance to the Rear

Actors: Glenn Ford, Stella Stevens, Melvyn Douglas, Jim Backus, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: Union Colonel Brackenby (Melvyn Douglas) and his second-in-command, Captain Heath (Glenn Ford), attempt to command a rather inept cavalry unit during the Civil War. General Willoughby (Jim Backus) heads them out West on assignment rather than allowing them to foul things up where it counts. They Read More

The Twilight Zone: What's in the Box

Actors: William Demarest, Joan Blondell, Sterling Holloway, Herbert Lytton, Sandra Gould

Synopsis: As a repairman (Sterling Holloway) works on his malfunctioning television set, middle-aged TV addict Joe Britt (William Demarest) fusses and fumes, while his wife Phyllis (Joan Blondell) launches another of her nag sessions. Once the repairman leaves, Joe tunes in to his favorite program, only to Read More

Bonanza: The Pressure Game

Actors: Lorne Greene, Pernell Roberts, Michael Landon, Dan Blocker, Guy Williams

Synopsis: Kathie Browne makes her third appearance as Adam Cartwright's erstwhile lady friend Laura Dayton. Encouraged by her Aunt Lil (Joan Blondell) to rush Adam into marriage, Laura decides to make her sweetheart jealous by playing up to Adam's cousin Will (Guy Williams). The scheme backfires when Laura Read More

The Untouchables: The Underground Court

Synopsis: After stealing a million dollars from the burning ocean liner "Morro Castle", Cuban thief Valentine Ferrar is pursued by by both Elliot Ness (Robert Stack) and underworld "judge" Foley (Richard Devon). Seeking a means of escape without detective, Ferrar answers a classified ad from widow Lucy Read More

Angel Baby

Actors: George Hamilton, Mercedes McCambridge, Joan Blondell, Henry Jones, Burt Reynolds, Salome Jens

Synopsis: Based on Jenny Angel, a novel by Elise Oaks Barber, Angel Baby is a gloves-off study of the faith-healing racket. The title character, played by Salome Jens, is a mute whose speech is ostensibly restored by Bible-thumper George Hamilton. Angel Baby is then exploited on the evangelical circuit by Read More

Lizzie

Actors: Eleanor Parker, Richard Boone, Joan Blondell, Hugo Haas, Ric Roman

Synopsis: Though his staunchest supporters may disagree, Lizzie is arguably director Hugo Haas' best film. Adapted from Shirley Jackson's The Bird's Nest, the film is a tour de force for Eleanor Parker, who plays the schizophrenic title character. Depending on the circumstances, Lizzie adopts one of three Read More

This Could Be the Night

Actors: Jean Simmons, Paul Douglas, Anthony Franciosa, Julie Wilson, Neile Adams, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: A rare comedy effort by director Robert Wise, This Could Be the Night is based on a series of short stories Cordelia Baird Gross. Jean Simmons stars as Anne Leeds, a prim, proper and very level-headed grade-school teacher who takes a night job as secretary to rough-and-tumble nightclub owner Rocco Read More

Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter?

Actors: Jayne Mansfield, Tony Randall, Betsy Drake, Joan Blondell, Mickey Hargitay, John Williams

Synopsis: Jayne Mansfield recreated her starmaking stage role in this film adaptation of George Axelrod's Broadway comedy. Mansfield plays a Monroe-like movie queen whom adman Tony Randall hopes to sign for a product endorsement. Through a fluke, the press believes that Randall is having an affair with Read More

The Amazing Colossal Man

Actors: Glenn Langan, Cathy Downs, William Hudson, James Seay, Larry Thor

Synopsis: A "Shock Theater" perennial since it was first released to television in the early 1960s (stretch-framed to pad out its running time), The Amazing Colossal Man is firmly in the "So Bad It's Good" category. While overseeing the atomic tests in the Nevada desert, Army colonel Glenn Langan is exposed Read More

Desk Set

Actors: Spencer Tracy, Katharine Hepburn, Gig Young, Joan Blondell, Dina Merrill

Synopsis: Based on the Broadway play by Robert Fryer and Lawrence Carr, Desk Set represents the eighth screen teaming of Spencer Tracy and Katharine Hepburn. Hepburn plays the head of a TV network research department; Tracy plays an efficiency expert, hired to modernize Hepburn's operation. When Tracy has a Read More

The Opposite Sex

Actors: June Allyson, Joan Collins, Dolores Gray, Jeff Richards, Ann Sheridan, Ann Miller, Leslie Nielsen, Harry James, Dick Shawn, Jim Backus

Synopsis: The Opposite Sex is an opulent musical remake of Clare Booth Luce's The Women (1939). June Allyson stars in the old Norma Shearer role, playing the virtuous wife who loses her husband to scheming Joan Collins (as the Joan Crawford character). At first agreeing to a divorce, June decides to win Read More

Sergeant Sullivan Speaking

The Blue Veil

Actors: Jane Wyman, Charles Laughton, Joan Blondell, Richard Carlson, Agnes Moorehead

Synopsis: The Blue Veil was the single most successful effort from the production team of Jerry Wald and Norman Krasna. Jane Wyman pulls out all the emotional stops as a young Frenchwoman named Louise, who, after losing her husband and child in WW I, devotes the rest of her life to selflessly caring for Read More

For Heaven's Sake

Actors: Clifton Webb, Joan Bennett, Robert Cummings, Edmund Gwenn, Joan Blondell

Synopsis: When the continual bickering of a married couple threatens to tear them apart, an angel is sent to help them get back together and start making babies in this fantasy. The husband is a busy producer for theatrical shows so the angel disguises himself as a wealthy Westerner looking to invest in a Read More

Christmas Eve

Actors: George Raft, George Brent, Randolph Scott, Joan Blondell, Virginia Field

Synopsis: This episodic holiday film centers around a rich spinster aunt whose greedy nephew is attempting legal action to take her estate. Before he makes a final decision, a caring judge tells the spinster that she can rally together the three foster children she raised to help her keep the estate, he Read More

The Corpse Came C.O.D.

Actors: George Brent, Joan Blondell, Adele Jergens, Jim Bannon, Leslie Brooks

Synopsis: Reminiscent of the classic "screwball" comedy-mysteries of the prewar years, Columbia's The Corpse Came C.O.D stars Warner Bros. alumni George Brent and Joan Blondell as rival Hollywood-based reporters Joe Medford and Rosemary Durant. When movie star Mona Harrison (Adele Jergens) receives a dead Read More

Nightmare Alley

Actors: Tyrone Power, Joan Blondell, Coleen Gray, Helen Walker, Taylor Holmes, Ian Keith

Synopsis: Nightmare Alley is the sordid tale of a conniving young man who, in the words of one of the film's supporting characters, ends up low because he aimed so high. Drifter Tyrone Power sweet-talks his way into a job as barker for a rundown carnival. He is fascinated by an illegal side-show attraction Read More

A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Actors: Dorothy McGuire, Joan Blondell, James Dunn, Lloyd Nolan, Peggy Ann Garner

Synopsis: One-time movie song-and-dance man James Dunn won an Academy Award for his "comeback" performance in A Tree Grows in Brooklyn. Based on the best-selling novel by Betty Smith, the film relates the trials and tribulations of a turn-of-the-century Brooklyn tenement family. The father, Dunn, is a Read More

Adventure

Actors: Clark Gable, Greer Garson, Joan Blondell, Thomas Mitchell, Tom Tully

Synopsis: A middle-aged Clark Gable returned from active duty in World War II to star in this MGM release that was heavily advertised as his big comeback. Gable is Harry Patterson, the bosun mate on a merchant marine vessel, a tough sailor and fighter with the proverbial girl in every port. But while in a Read More

Don Juan Quilligan

Actors: William Bendix, Joan Blondell, Phil Silvers, Anne Revere, B.S. Pully

Synopsis: In this comedy, a barge captain with an Electra complex marries two women. He married the first because she laughed like his late mother. He married the other because she cooks like his mom. He soon finds himself in over his head. A good friend helps extricate him by devising an ingenious plot. Read More

Cry Havoc

Actors: Margaret Sullavan, Ann Sothern, Joan Blondell, Fay Bainter, Marsha Hunt

Synopsis: Allen R. Kerward's flagwaving stage play Proof thro' the Night was vastly improved in its screen adaptation, which was retitled Cry Havoc. Margaret Sullavan (making her first screen appearance in two years), Joan Blondell and Ann Southern are among the appropriately deglamorized actresses playing Read More

Lady for a Night

Actors: Joan Blondell, John Wayne, Philip Merivale, Ray Middleton, Blanche Yurka, Edith Barrett

Synopsis: The unlikely combination of John Wayne and Joan Blondell adds a bit of vinegar and spice to the so-so costume drama Lady for a Night. Blondell is cast as Jenny Blake, owner of the Memphis Belle-not a WW2 bomber, but a gambling ship moored just outside New Orleans. Jenny's partner and erstwhile Read More

Model Wife

Actors: Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Charlie Ruggles, Lee Bowman, Ruth Donnelly

Synopsis: The real-life marriage between Dick Powell and Joan Blondell was already on the rocks when they costarred in Model Wife. The story is "Working Girl Plot No. 6": Blondell's employer frowns upon married women working. She's married to Powell. The marriage must remain secret. The boss has a "thing" Read More

Three Girls About Town

Actors: Joan Blondell, Binnie Barnes, Janet Blair, John Howard, Robert Benchley

Synopsis: Faith, Hope and Charity motivate the wacky storyline of Columbia's Three Girls About Town--or to be more exact, gorgeous sisters Faith, Hope and Charity Banner, played respectively by Binnie Barnes, Joan Blondell and Janet Blair. Faith and Hope are gainfully employed as New York hotel hostesses Read More

Topper Returns

Actors: Joan Blondell, Roland Young, Carole Landis, Billie Burke, Dennis O'Keefe

Synopsis: The third of producer Hal Roach's Topper films, Topper Returns eschews the frothy "screwball" format of the first two in favor of an "old dark house" comedy-mystery. Roland Young returns as banker Cosmo Topper, who gallantly offers a lift to pretty hitchhikers Gail Richards (Joan Blondell) and Ann Read More

Two Girls on Broadway

Actors: Lana Turner, Joan Blondell, George Murphy, Kent Taylor, Richard Lane

Synopsis: Two Girls on Broadway is an updated reworking of MGM's Oscar-winning 1929 musical Broadway Melody. Joan Blondell and Lana Turner play a vaudeville "sister" act, slightly more talented than the similar duo in Broadway Melody. The twosome have sworn never to break up, but that was before hoofer George Murphy Read More

I Want a Divorce

Actors: Joan Blondell, Dick Powell, Frank Fay, Jessie Ralph

Synopsis: Ironically, the marriage between Dick Powell and Joan Blondell was beginning to fall apart at the time they co-starred in Paramount's I Want a Divorce. The film manages to sustain two plotlines, with newlyweds Alan and Geraldine MacNally (Powell and Blondell) beginning to have second thoughts Read More

Brother Orchid

Actors: Edward G. Robinson, Humphrey Bogart, Donald Crisp, Ralph Bellamy

Synopsis: Edward G. Robinson plays orchid-loving gangster Little John Sarto, who aspires to "real class." During a power struggle with usurping mobster Jack Buck (Humphrey Bogart), Sarto is taken for a one-way ride, but he escapes his would-be assassins and hides out in a monastery overseen by Brother Read More

Off the Record

Actors: Pat O'Brien, Joan Blondell, Bobby Jordan, Alan Baxter

Synopsis: Pat O'Brien is his usual likably obnoxious self in the Warner Bros. newspaper yarn Off the Record. While trying to smash a numbers racket, star reporter Breezy Elliot (O'Brien) takes tough young numbers-runner Mickey Fallon (Bobby Jordan) under his wing. The kid gets a job as a copy boy, earning Read More